Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Cinematic Rantings

On April 15th, usually a day of annual anxious madness but one which the IRS deemed to soften by adding 2 additional days for those us deeply into prolonging our pain, an article in the NYT appeared regarding one Mr. Slavoj Zizek .To quote some quotes within the article, Mr. Zizek opines that:

"I am too emphatic,"he said emphatically. "Too expressive. I don’t think this works on screen. Even if I state something totally obvious, I say it with this intensity, as if I am saying the last truth."

Regarding a movie that he stars in, he emphasizes that cinema is "the ultimate pervert art.” As he puts it: “It doesn’t give you what you desire. It tells you how to desire."

"Out of the mess of me talking, talking, talking — you know, my friends call me Fidel — Sophie (the movie's director) somehow had to introduce order in the total chaos."

Elsewhere in the piece, "He’s also an engaging, if exhausting, conversationalist. During a 45-minute phone call, topics ranged from Darwin to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to his defiant admiration for "300" to the "incredible Stalinist classical musicals" he had just discovered on a Moscow trip."

All this has to do with a movie, Pervert's Guide to the Cinema, that will be playing in NYC at the Museum of Modern Art from Wednesday April 18 through April 23.

Not since his fellow countryman, Martin Strel, who is also afflicted with a peculiar Slovenian version of reality, climbed out of the Amazon after his 3,274 mile 66 day swim from its source to its end, has a Slovenian come to America's attention.

So, if you're planning on being in the Big City in the next week, you may wnat to stop over at MOMA to catch Slavoj Zizek in full tilt boogie mode.